NASA Captures Hurricane Irene Track from Space [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

As the East Coast prepares for Hurricane Irene to strike this weekend, NASA satellites have captured Hurricane Irene's track since it began as a tropical storm far out in the Atlantic Ocean.

NASA astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have seen the tropical storm, which began in the Atlantic Ocean, moving toward the U.S. East Coast and captured a series of photos and videos using the NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-13) satellite.

We saw a big change in the structure of the storm over the several days that we've watched her, especially yesterday, Fossum told Space.com.

Expected to begin in the Carolinas, the category two storm is predicted to begin on Saturday, relentlessly plowing its way up to coast towards Long Island, where the Hurricane Irene track could possibly take a landfall.

Here is an animation of the Hurricane Irene track, sped up using infrared and visible frames of data from the GOES-13 satellite and squeezed down to 36 seconds.

NASA handout image of Hurricane Irene moving over the Caribbean taken by astronaut Ron Garan from the International Space Station, August 22, 2011. Reuters

This NASA satellite image, released to Reuters August 25, 2011, shows Hurricane Irene (center left) moving through the Bahamas on August 25, 2011 at 10:02 a.m. EDT. Hurricane Irene bore down on North Carolina on Friday, tens of thousands of people evacuated and East Coast cities including New York braced for a weekend hit from the powerful storm. REUTERS